Bike Accident Quotes

I’m not better, you know. The weight hasn’t left my head. I feel how easily I could fall back into it, lie down and not eat, waste my time and curse wasting my time, look at my homework and freak out and go and chill at Aaron’s, look at Nia and be jealous again, take the subway home and hope that it has an accident, go and get my bike and head to the Brooklyn Bridge. All of that is still there. The only thing is, it’s not an option now. It’s just… a possibility, like it’s a possibility that I could turn to dust in the next instant and be disseminated throughout the universe as an omniscient consciousness. It’s not a very likely possibility.

Faster is fatal, slower is safe.

I might have learned one thing. When people are hurting and in pain, when they are in the depths of the valley, instead of answers and solutions, maybe they need someone who will sit next to them quietly. Perhaps they need someone who will look them in the eye and listen to them in their noise and their silence.

Certainly,' said his mother, 'but first I want to know about the accident with your bicycle.' Well,' Phillip said, 'if you wanta really know. I was sitting in the basket of my bike ridin' down Mission Hill backwards singing 'Polly Wolly Doodle' and I saw the bread truck comin' and I guess I didn't turn soon enough and I ran into the Wallaces' iron fence and I caught my shoe on the pedal and my pants on a picket and I hit my eye on the handlebars and I don't know what else happened. But, boy, you should have heard the kids and that ole breadman laugh!

A landing from space has been described as a train wreck, followed by a car accident, followed by falling off your bike.

Two boys on fluorescent bikes with extravagant ape-hanger handlebars were doing wheelies in the parking lot, weaving in and out of each other’s paths with a dexterity that suggested a solid background in video gaming and possible high-paying futures as air-traffic controllers . . . if they managed to stay away from coke and car accidents, that was.

So anyway. If I let Corey take me out again, he’s got this buddy – Kyle maybe? Dunno – anyway, he’s single. Maybe you could come along and we could go doubles.” Lisa thought being involved in a shop class accident sounded more fun, but she managed a somewhat pleasant expression, or so she hoped. “Isn’t Kyle the one who spent a week in ICU after he tried to jump over a UPS truck with his bike?” “I think so. Why?” Lisa sighed. “If I have to explain it…

When you’re afraid of going forward, you fall. By advancing, you constantly prevent the worst thing that could happen: falling. You might fail, but look at it this way. A cyclist and someone, who is terrified of biking, have an accident. The cyclist will know why he fell, and will make sure it doesn’t happen again; he will continue biking, however. The other person will make sure it doesn’t happen by never biking again. I had an acquaintance tell me something that still sticks with me now: doubt will get you out of action, and action will get you out of doubts.   Success is waiting for you. Stop overthinking it, and move forward like it’s the Tour de France.   You won’t be doubting yourself again.

Just one more, before we get on with our writing,’ said the teacher, turning to a large, friendly-looking boy with cropped hair and large ears. ‘Scott’s from America, Mr Phinn. All the way from Tennessee. Come along then, Scott, what was your accident?’ ‘Well, I guess the worst accident I had was when I was riding my bike on the sidewalk – ’ ‘We call it “pavement” over here, Scott,’ interrupted the teacher. ‘Oh yeah, pavement, and I came to this slope. I was pedalling so fast I just could not stop. I put on my brakes but I carried on skidding and sliding until I hit one of those great white things in the middle of the road – ’ ‘Bollards,’ said the teacher. ‘Straight up, miss,’ said the boy. ‘I really did.

Oh, but to get through this night. Why won’t sleep come? What’s bothering me here in the dark? It’s not the badgers, it’s not the snakes. What’s bothering me? Something darker is worrying a hole inside me—look how my legs are trembling. Stop moving, Tatiana. That’s how the carnivores find you, by the flash of life on your body, they find you and eat you while you sleep. Like venomous spiders, they’ll bite you first to lull you into sleep—you won’t even feel it—and then they will gnaw your flesh until nothing remains. But even the animals eating her alive was not the thing that worried the sick hole in Tatiana’s stomach as she lay in the leaves with her face hidden from the forest, with her arms over her head, in case anything decided to fall on her. She should’ve made herself a shelter but it got dark so fast, and she was so sure she would find the lake, she hadn’t been thinking of making herself more comfortable in the woods. She kept walking and walking, and then was downed and breathless and unprepared for pitch black night. To quell the terror inside her, to not hear her own voices, Tatiana whimpered. Lay and cried, low and afraid. What was tormenting her from the inside out? Was it worry over Marina? No... not quite. But close. Something about Marina. Something about Saika... Saika. The girl who caused trouble between Dasha and her dentist boyfriend, the girl who pushed her bike into Tatiana’s bike to make her fall under the tires of a downward truck rushing headlong... the girl who saw Tatiana’s grandmother carrying a sack of sugar and told her mother who told her father who told the Luga Soviet that Vasily Metanov harbored sugar he had no intention of giving up? The girl who did something so unspeakable with her own brother she was nearly killed by her own father’s hand—and she herself had said the boy got worse—and this previously unmentioned brother was, after all, dead. The girl who stood unafraid under rowan trees and sat under a gaggle of crows and did not feel black omens, the girl who told Tatiana her wicked stories, tempted Tatiana with her body, turned away from Marina as Marina was drowning...who turned Marina against Tatiana, the girl who didn’t believe in demons, who thought everything was all good in the universe, could she . . . What if...? What if this was not an accident? Moaning loudly, Tatiana turned away to the other side as if she’d just had a nightmare. But she hadn’t been dreaming. Saika took her compass and her knife. But Marina took her watch. And there it was. That was the thing eating up Tatiana from the inside out. Could Marina have been in on something like this? Twisting from side to side did not assuage her torn stomach, did not mollify her sunken heart. Making anguished noises, her eyes closed, she couldn’t think of fields, or Luga, or swimming, or clover or warm milk, anything. All good thoughts were drowned in the impossible sorrow. Could Marina have betrayed her?

So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head. . . but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz. . . not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-​night diner down around Rockaway Beach. There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip. Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out. . . thirty-​five, forty-​five. . . then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of these. . . and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything. . . then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-​five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board. Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Taillights far up ahead coming closer, faster, and suddenly -- zaaapppp -- going past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea. The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oil-​slick. . . instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two-​inch notices in the paper the next day: “An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway I.” Indeed. . . but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there's no sound except wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind-​burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes. But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right. . . and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it. . . howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica. . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge. . . The Edge. . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others -- the living -- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.

parked the bike in a side road—and fainted. The second accident occurred at night in heavy

If I died in a freak accident while hurrying through Shibuya's notorious "scramble" intersection, where thousands of pedestrians crossed from all directions at once when the WALK light shifted to green, I hoped whoever performed my funeral service would know I died satisfied. Shibuya felt like being in the center of the vertical world, with tall buildings flashing advertisements, neon lights, and level after level of stores and restaurants visible through glass windows. So many people, so hurried, so much to look at and experience. Fashionista women wearing skinny pants with stiletto pumps riding bikes down crowded sidewalks. Harajuku girls with pink hair and crazy outfits. Loud izakaya bars where men's conversations and laughter spilled onto the street, and women walking by wearing kimonos with white socks tucked into flip-flops. Young people strutting around dressed in kosupure ("cosplay," Nik translated) outfits from their favorite anime, like it was Halloween every day here. TOO MUCH FUN. I didn't want to die, but if I did, I would tell the souls I met in the afterlife: Don't feel bad about my premature end. I saw it all in my short time down in the upworld of Tokyo.

At OBSS   I didn’t have long to wait before “twinky” Kim confided his secrets to me. Out of earshot from the group, during lunch, he announced excitedly, “We did it!”               “We did what?” I asked.               He glanced towards Jules, who was chatting animatedly with a couple of the other instructors. “You know. Me and him. We did it.”               I smiled but said nothing. Kim had a gleeful grin as he uttered, “Last night in the woods.”               “What exactly did you do?”               He cast his eyes down shyly. “We made out.”               “And?”               “It was great!” he exclaimed.               “Tell all, you naughty devil,” I remarked. Like most first-timers, he was eager to relate his sexual encounter to a pair of sympathetic ears.               “After the biking accident, after you guys rode on for help, he made the move.”               “Well? What happened” I queried.               “When he was blotting the blood from my knee, he placed his hand on my thigh. I did not move away. I dared not look him in the eye, but I enjoyed the smouldering sensation of his hand, which slowly eased into my underwear.” He paused for effect. “I was afraid, so I kept my eyes shut. I had Goosebumps all over when he held my… You know…” The boy couldn’t bring himself to say the word penis.               “No, I don’t know,” I teased patiently. “What?”               “Down there…” he looked at his groin, which had grown while reliving the circumstance.

Ever tell you about my bike accident, Stu? Changed my life." He ignored her. "Changed. My. Life." He sighed and dropped his earphones onto his neck. "Okay. Make it quick." "Know why?...Because I saw something terrible." She blinked into the darkness. She'd been so scared. "You waiting for a drumroll or something?" "The truth. That's what I saw." "Wow. The Dalai Lama. In my cab. Drunk. I'm so honoured.

For decades, big-city mayors and planning officials have been calling for more bike lanes, pedestrian access, and fewer cars. And for decades, traffic, air pollution, and accidents congested our streets and skies. Then, in weeks, cyclists took over the road, outdoor dining tables sprouted, and skies cleared.

Progressive tackled risk assessment in a different way, building a massive database with more granular indicators that better predicted the probability of accidents. It used this data to spot the good risks in pools that looked like bad drivers to other insurers. For example, among drivers cited for drinking, those with children were least likely to reoffend; among motorcyclists, Harley owners aged forty-plus were likely to ride their bikes less often. Progressive used information like this to set prices so that even the worst customers could be profitable.

She looked at me listlessly. “Kristen, why haven’t you talked to him?” The question surprised me. My best friend hadn’t been my best friend in a long time. We didn’t talk about me or what I was going through. We didn’t really talk about anything. I went back to scrolling through the artist’s album on her phone so I wouldn’t have to look at her. “What’s there to say?” She laughed. It actually startled me it was so sudden, and I stared at her in surprise. “Go home, Kristen.” I blinked at her. “What?” She took her phone from my hands. “Go home. Talk to him. Be with him. Be happy.” I furrowed my brow. “Nothing has changed, Sloan.” She stared at me with red-rimmed eyes. “You don’t think you’re worth it.” I shifted uncomfortably. “What are you talking about?” “Your mom. All your life she made you feel like you were never good enough. And so you don’t think you’re good enough for Josh either. But you are.” I shook my head. “No. That’s not it, Sloan.” “Yeah. It is.” “Sloan, he doesn’t know what’s best for him. He’s just thinking about right now.” “No. You’re the one who doesn’t know what’s best for you. She ruined you. She spent your whole childhood setting a bar she knew you’d never reach, and now you think you have to be perfect to be good enough for anyone.” We stared at each other. Then Sloan’s chest started to rise and fall in the rapid way that told me a breakdown was coming. I instinctively pulled tissues from a box on the end table just as her eyes started to tear up. “Kristen? Brandon’s accident is my fault.” I was used to this. She lost focus a lot. This time I was glad for the change of subject. “No, Sloan, it wasn’t.” I took the plate from her lap and put it on the coffee table and gathered up her hands. “None of this was your fault.” She bit her lip, the tears falling down her cheeks. “It is. I should have never let him ride that bike. I should have insisted.” I shook my head, scooting closer to her. “No. He was a grown man, Sloan. He was a paramedic. He went on those accident calls—he knew the risks. Don’t you dare put this on yourself.” Her chin quivered. “How can I not? Shouldn’t I have protected him from himself? I loved him. It was my job.

Ihung up with Josh, and the switch flipped in my head. Sloan called it my velociraptor brain because it made me fierce and sharp. Something big had to trigger it, and when it did, my compulsive, laser-focused, primal side activated. The one that got me a near perfect score on my SATs and got me through college finals and Mom. The one that made me clean when I was stressed and threatened to launch into full-scale manic OCD if left unchecked—that kicked in. Emotion drained away, the tiredness from staying up all night crying dissipated, and I became my purpose. I didn’t do hysterics. Never had. When in crisis, I became systematic and efficient. And the transition was now complete. I weighed only for a second whether to call Sloan and tell her or go pick her up. I decided to pick her up. She would be too upset to drive properly, but knowing her, she would try anyway. From Josh’s explanation of the situation, Brandon wouldn’t be out of the hospital anytime soon. Sloan wouldn’t leave Brandon, and I wouldn’t leave her. She would need things for the stay. People would need to be called. Arrangements made. I began to compile a list in my head of things to do and things to pack as I quickly but methodically drove to Sloan’s. Phone charger, headphones, blanket, change of clothes for Sloan, toiletries, and her laptop. It took me twenty minutes to get to her house, and I got out of my car ready for a surgical extraction. I stood there, surrounded by the earthy smell of Sloan’s just-watered potted porch flowers. The door opened, and I took in her blissfully ignorant face one more time. “Kristen?” It wasn’t unusual for me to stop by. But she knew me well enough to instantly know something was wrong. “Sloan, Brandon has been in an accident,” I said calmly. “He’s alive, but I need you to get your purse and come with me.” I knew immediately that I’d been right to come get her instead of calling. One look at her and I knew she wouldn’t have been able to put a foot in front of the other. While I mobilized and became strong under stress, she froze and weakened. “What?  ” she breathed. “We have to hurry. Come on.” I pushed past her and systematically executed my checklist. I gave myself a two-minute window to grab what was needed. Her gym bag would be in the laundry room, already filled with toiletries and her headphones. I grabbed that, pulled a sweater from her closet, selected a change of clothes for her, and stuffed her laptop inside the bag. When I came out of the room, she had managed to grab her purse as instructed. She stood by the sofa looking shaken, her eyes moving back and forth like she was trying to figure out what was happening. Her cell phone sat by her easel and I snatched it, pulling the charger from the wall. I grabbed her favorite throw blanket from the sofa and stuffed that in the bag and zipped it. List complete. Then I took her by the elbow, locked her front door, and dragged her to the car. “Wha…what happened? What happened!” she screamed, finally coming out of her shock. I opened up the passenger door and put her in. “Buckle yourself up. I’ll tell you what I know on the way.” When I got around to the driver’s side, she had her phone to her ear. “He’s not answering. He’s not answering! What happened, Kristen?!” I grabbed her face in my hands. “Listen to me. Look at me. He is alive. He was hit on his bike. Josh went on the call. He was unconscious. It was clear he had some broken bones and a possible head injury. He’s at the ER, and I need to get you to the hospital to be with him. But I need you to be calm.” Her brown eyes were terrified, but she nodded. “Right now your job is to call Brandon’s family,” I said firmly. “Relay what I just said to you, calmly. Can you do that for Brandon?” She nodded again. “Yes.” Her hands shook, but she dialed.

Lennon was – whether by luck, accident or perceptive foresight – at the forefront of the psychedelic era’s passion for rose-tinted introspection, which channelled the likes of children’s literature, Victorian fairgrounds and circuses, and an innocent sense of wonder. McCartney, too, moved with the times when writing his children’s singalong Yellow Submarine. Among the hippie era’s other moments of nostalgia were Pink Floyd’s Bike and The Gnome from their debut album Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, recorded at EMI Studios as the Beatles worked on Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, laid down in 1966 but released in the same month as Sgt Pepper, and which drew from Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories just as Lennon did; and many more, from Tiny Tim’s Tiptoe Through The Tulips to Traffic’s psychedelic fantasy Hole In My Shoe. The Beatles continued writing songs evoking childhood to the end of their days. Sgt Pepper – itself a loose concept album harking back to earlier, more innocent times – referenced Lewis Carroll (Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds), youthful anticipation of old age (When I’m Sixty-Four), a stroll down memory lane (Good Morning Good Morning), and the sensory barrage of a circus big top extravaganza (Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!). It was followed by Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine, two films firmly pitched at the widest possible audience. A splendid time was, indeed, guaranteed for all.

the divorce she made a noise that sounded like an empathy orgasm, then pulled me to her chest and cradled my head like a child’s. ‘You must be devastated,’ she said, petting my hair in a way that was not unenjoyable but was not the romp I had hoped for, from the glint. ‘This must be such a dark time for you. I’m a Highly Sensitive Person, so you don’t need to tell me, I get it.’ I did not think it required a person to be highly sensitive to know that divorce was painful, but more than that, I did not want to talk about it with Tamara. I kissed her for a minute or two, and it was going well until she made the noise again, then pulled away and said, ‘Poor little bird.’ I told her I was okay, mostly, that I knew nothing worthwhile came easy and was taking it one day at a time. In reality, life since my mom’s house had felt very dark indeed, more or less blurring into one long nap punctuated by cereal and episodes of Housewives; but I did not share this, because I did not want to be this woman’s bird. She poured us each a glass of water and told me a lengthy anecdote about her friend’s bike accident, labouring particularly hard over the doctor’s instruction that – should this friend ever find herself hurtling over her handlebars on Roncesvalles Avenue again – she not brace for impact. ‘You have to go limp and let it happen,’ she said softly. ‘You can’t fight it, or you’ll break every bone in your body.’ She was rocking me back and forth at this point, but getting a cab at that hour, on New Year’s, would have been impossible, so when she slid her hand under my shirt, I pretended to be asleep. The next morning we lay around in her bed, where, to avoid further cycling metaphors, I asked her to tell me the twist endings

He'd been hit by a car, knocked off his bike. At the funeral the vicar had called it an "accident". But somehow the word wasn't enough. It wasn't big enough, powerful enough - didn't mean enough. He hadn't spilled a cup of tea, he hadn't tripped over his own feet. He'd had the life smashed out of him. It felt like there should be a whole new word invented just to describe it.

You were biking to work and got into an accident. Then you fainted. Jensen caught you before you hit the asphalt. Scooped you right up, all heroic-like. You’d have hated it, so it’s a good thing you were unconscious.

Please don’t get involved. Let the cops do their job. I would hate for anything to happen to you. After what happened today, with your bike accident

In the Netherlands, fewer than one in thirty riders wear helmets, the streets are full of cyclists, and the bike accident and head injury rate is far lower than it is in the United States.

Slowly my movement returned and the pain lessened, until, by the time I left the center some eight months after the accident, I really was on the mend. I knew I was getting better when I sneaked out one night, caught a train home, collected my 1200 cc motorbike, and, still strapped up in my metal back brace, rode the bike back to Headley Court before dawn. The nurses would have gone nuts if they could have seen me, but my motorbike was my independence--and the risky-but-successful mission also meant my spirit was returning. I was smiling again.

All of the ways I am exactly like Bob Dylan is, one time a biking accident changed my life. Not a motorcycle accident, like in 1966 when Dylan crashed his Triumph Tiger on a mountain road in upstate New York, broke some bones, and went into seclusion. I was on a Schwinn Stingray, so I wasn't "riding in the classic sense; I was pedaling.